Flag-burning Lode Running Thin

June 25, 1990|The Morning Call

Political panderers are going to continue to try to mine the "flag issue" for votes. But last Thursday's decisive House vote against a proposed constitutional amendment to prohibit desecration of the U.S. flag shows the lode has about played out.

First, the Senate will be given its chance to demagogue the question and pillory the Supreme Court. It's a golden opportunity for the upper chamber. Now that the House has acted, senators have a "free" vote. They can get on record on the side of the flag without having to answer to their consciences about the harm they know an amendment would do to the Constitution.

Fortunately, public passions have cooled in the year since the initial Supreme Court decision holding flag burning a legitimate form of political protest, protected by the First Amendment. Congressional offices were not inundated with mail and phone calls on the issue. President Bush, ever mindful of the polls, didn't phone reluctant House members to entreat them to back the amendment. Letters to The Morning Call, admittedly an imperfect measure of public opinion, have run heavily against the proposed amendment. A year ago, they were overwhelmingly opposed to the Supreme Court's decision.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal last Thursday, Hodding Carter, a former Mississippi newspaper editor and State Department spokesman, put the matter in perspective. He likened the "blatant hypocrisy" of today's flag-savers to that of the "never-never segregationists of the 1950s and 1960s." In both instances, office holders know what they are doing is wrong, but opportunistically join the crowd in an effort to stay in office.

It's something to remember this fall when the flag-wavers start running those 30-second TV spots that Sen. Robert Dole so cynically suggested would be devastating campaign fodder. Remember they are nothing more than an emotional appeal designed to divert the voters' attention from the real problems.